Yesterday on the way to Pixxe/Jadalnia Warszawa/Slow Food Youth’s Jam Session, Iza and I were unable to get into the Finskie Domki (Finnish Homes) neighborhood by car because there was a giant Soldariność protest blocking all entrances. The driver dropped us off on Ujazdowski above Trasa Lazienkowska. So there we stood with two enormous crates plus two other bags — easily 50 or 60 kg of fruit, sugar and kitchen equipment. The driver suggested we get Solidarity people to help. We tried asking people but they just streamed by; it didn’t seem to be working.

Crowds make me nervous – so I lifted may arms and started screaming, in English, “Please help us!” and also “Proszę mi pomóc” (Please help me! — at the moment I forgot how to say Please help us!) Finally four guys stopped, listened, picked up the boxes and carried them ,5km right to the house. HURRAH!

JAM SESSION IN PICTURES

Beautiful jam art, result of dropping the sieve with cornelian cherry mush inside.

Inside, delicious cinnamon apple preserves in progress.

Cinnamon apple greatness.

Pears with ginger, lemon, cinnamon, and other spices.

Pears with ginger, lemon, cinnamon, and other spices.

We call this Total Dereń (dereń is cornelian cherry AKA dogwood)

Mirabelka plums plus a mystery fruit, which we believe is edible because it tasted too good to be poisonous.

Jarring up the apples and dogwood.

I didn’t count how many jars we made, but we processed over 20 kg of fruit and used only 2 kg of sugar. No sweet tooths in this group!

On Sept 19, 2012 I held a jam-making party in the local park as part of the M4 Rakowiec community action project organized by the great people at Odblokuj. We made jam from wild elderberries, wild grapes and Antonówki apples from the garden. Wild fruits of Rakowiec! There were some really sweet old ladies there, but sadly I didn’t get any photos of them.

We have kilos upon kilos of Antonówki (Atonovka) apples and we are going to preserve them this Sunday right at the Pixxe Garden. Come along and bring a jar so that you can take some home! 23.09.2012. 15.00-17.00. The garden is located on Racławicka between Grójecka and Sierpienskiego. Directions to the Garden here.